


Still the Most Beautiful Person on Earth

by that_dark_haired_perv



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Dragon AU, Fairies, Fantasy AU, Fluff, GUYS PLEASE BE PROUD OF ME, I'M KIND OF????, Knight AU, Knight!Dragon!Alfred, Knight!Dragon!America, Love at First Sight, M/M, PROUD OF THIS???, Prince!Arthur, USUK Secret Santa 2016, Wow, phoenix au, prince AU, prince!England
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:10:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9075298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_dark_haired_perv/pseuds/that_dark_haired_perv
Summary: Alfred wanted to-- And then the flashback is gone, and he's met with the piercing eyes of the crown prince (still the most beautiful person on earth) except now his fingers are silent, and his hands are folded across his chest. He’s frowning, Alfred notes. Alfred grins at him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nateyjones](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nateyjones).



He’s seen the crown prince once, and only once.

(He does not really remember the encounter.)

(It troubles him, sometimes.)

Defending the crown prince isn’t his job- that's his father's (step-father, actually, but that doesn’t matter at all), and he doesn’t like guarding anyone personally anyway. His father is great for the job, though- he doesn’t submit to the prince’s wishes, but he’s the best protector the prince would’ve ever had.

(Alfred knows this. He knows that this is a fact. His father's taken a one day holiday once. The prince has been kidnapped only once. It isn’t a coincidence that this happenned at the same day. His father is simply _that_ good.)

His father says the prince is a force to be reckoned with. Alfred does not understand. The one (and only) time he’s seen the prince, he didn’t seem like... _‘a force to be reckoned with’_. The prince was in the garden, sipping tea, talking to the flowers whilst laughing. Yeah, what's more terrifying than that? Alfred cannot even begin to imagine.

He feels a sickness by his throat and he- he stumbles on a step. A maid scurries off to the kitchen. He wishes they didn’t see him stumble. He has a reputation to carry on.

It is a slow day, so far. He doesn’t really do anything, and there isn’t really anything he needs to tend to. There isnt a war. There isn’t any quests. Its a holiday he didn’t ask for, and Alfred does not know what to make of it.

He doesn’t know what to do. And then, then-

 _Then_ the sickness in his throat thickens, and Alfred feels _change_. He feels like crying and vomitting at the same time. He’s experienced... _change_... enough times to know what this means.

He settles on walking by the countryside.

\-----

The suburbs of England is familiar. It feels like coming home. Like something he’s left behind for a long time, and it’s just now coming back. His father’s taking a leave today. To a nearby town, to negotiate. He doesn’t understand why the queen (or the king, for that matter) does not do these themselves.

He’s taking a stroll by the riverside, mountains as his backdrop and the chirps of swallows soaring through the sky. From the corners of his eyes, he saw something yellow, green, pale peach. His eyesight really isn’t the best (worst understatement of the year, really. Knights are supposed to have good eyesight. His is horrid. He wonders how he came to become one. A knight-) so he shakes it off.

 

He hears the trickling of the water by the river, soft sprinkling sounds that makes him waver. He hears a soft tinkling. Like bells. Like bells _laughing_. And then he sees that flash of yellow-green-palepeach all over again.

"Hello?"

He listens. He listens and listens, but there is no other sounds after.

"Hello?" he says back, his throat feeling rough and sore.

He hears a stifled gasp, and feels a thump on the ground. Like someone’s fallen out of excitement. And they fell hard enough to elicite a sound.

"Who are you?" the voice whispers. They sound weary, and their voice carries over the forest. Alfred still does not see them. Are they the yellow-green bundle he saw before?

He keeps on looking. He’s supposed to be good at finding things, isnt he? He sees a flash of movement over a bush about 5 feet ahead of him. Alfred walks. He hears that soft tinkling all over again.

"A knight," he hears. That was not his voice. "You’re a knight!"

And then the voice is stringing a bunch of old nonesense, mumbles, but Alfred thinks he hears the word _dragon_ and _knight_ over and over.

"Yes," he answers. "Your majesty."

A joke. That’s what he’s saying.

(There’s a weird feeling at the back of his neck he chooses to ignore.)

And he’s looking for a laugh, because he finds he likes the way the voice stumbles out words with a wrapped kind of sound.

What he does not understand (and what he was certainly _not_ looking for) is a strangled gasp and a _'how did you know I thought, I thought, I thought- I- I- I-'_ and the bushes parting like clouds on a sunny day.

Standing in the middle was a blond with a grass green hoodie draped over his shoulder.

The prince. The _crown prince_ is standing over him, hair as dishevelled and blond as when he saw him at the garden that day. Like wheat under the sun. Like starlight catching into sand.

His eyes are green. Just green. Not emerald green or sapphire green or green with flecks of gold around the iris. He blinks his ordinary green eyes at Alfred. Alfred still finds himself mesmerised.

There’s fire. In the prince’s eyes, in his _soul-_

He feels that prickle under the back of his neck again, something struggling to go out of its shell. Something begging to be let out of his skin.

 

"Alfred F. Jones," hee said, out of respect. And he kneels, again, out of respect and courtesy (and not because he cant keep his legs straight. And certainly not because his knees felt weak.) "At your service!"

He looks at the prince while he says this. The prince looks older than he remembers, though his eyes are as sharp as his mother’s, nose as straight as his father’s. So nothing is really of surprise.

(Even his eyebrows. They’re a perfect copy of the queen’s eyebrows- thick and heavy, messy and rough, but with elegance only eyebrows of royalty can have.)

(Alfred wants to laugh.)

The prince (Alfred does not remember his name) chews on his bottom lip. Daintily, like a fairy would. "Arrthur Kirkland, call me Arthur. And please don’t use that majesty nonsense on me."

Then he looks at Alfred, a subtle frown on his face. It’s so subtle- Alfred should _not_ be intimidated.

But he is, kind of.

Alfred laughs. His father was right about the crown prince. When the thought of his father flits through his mind, he notes that the second time his father took a break, the crown prince goes into the woods by himself. Alfred-

Alfred wants to kill his own neck. The itch is getting worse. He knows what this means, and he doesn’t want this to happen in front of a member of the kingdom.

"Okay," Alfred smiles.

The prince- Arthur, raised one of his eyebrows. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay."

Alfred touches the his own back. The itch is starting to spread. "Would you like me to bring you back to the castle, Arthur?" A pause. He feels the burn under his toes. "You seem to be lost.”

Prince Arthur squints at him, like he doesn’t like Alfred telling him he needs help. Alfred does not know what to do. "And _you_ seem oddly terrified. _And_ twitchy. What’s going under you?"

 _'A tail,'_ he thinks. _'And wings. And an overwhelming urge to burn and water everything. At the same time.'_

He doesn’t say any of that.

"Probably just. Mosquitoes," he says. Yeah, _of course_. Mosquitoes! What a wonderful idea! He’s not convincing. He’s not even convincing himself. The prince- _Arthur_ squints even more. His stare still left Alfred breathless. He shudders, and stumbles away.

Suddenly he’s flashing back to those times at the kingdom again, when he's younger,with a brighter view on everything in life. He’s running around the castle, marvelling at the high ceilings and the colourful paintings, the huge curtains.

He ran and ran and _ran_ , and finally he saw a door smaller than the others. This door was simpler. Normal. Like the doors in his own house, dark ebony with a circular handle.

Somehow, this made him even more curious about the door than anything else in the room. There were huge vases, knight armours, elegant statues and sharpened arrows, but none of them caught his attention.

Not anymore. Not right then.

He walked slowly towards the door. His shoes creaked in contact with the marble floor, and he stopped.

He opened the door. It’s awfully silent- the door did not produce a sound, and even his breathing felt nonexistant right then.

When Alfred saw him, he thought he was the most beautiful person on earth. He wasn’t sure why. Sure, his eyelashes were long, and thick, and so blond they’re almost white, but so does his mother's, so it’s not much of a surprise. He’s not looking at Alfreds direction, rather, at the big tree in the garden.

He seemed to be talking to himself. He looked happy. Alfred fell a little in love.

Alfred could only see his profile. _Still_ _the most beautiful person on earth._

His eyes were half-lidded, glaring in concentration. But Alfred caught the barest hints of the green of his irises. His fingers were drumming accross the table in front of him in a steady rhythm. His hair was slightly messy, albeit from the wind. His eyebrows were thicker than most people Alfred has met. It brings out his eyes.

Alfred decided he likes them.

_He’s the most beautiful person on earth._

Alfred wanted to-

-And then the flashback is gone, and he's met with the piercing eyes of the crown prince ( _still the most beautiful person on earth)_ except now his fingers are silent, and his hands are folded across his chest. He’s frowning, Alfred notes. Alfred grins at him.

“Hmm. Jones?"

Alfred nods.

"Is Frederick Jones your father?" There's a sparkle in his eyes Alfred cannot understand. It’s playful, almost, and his eyes are brighter- which is insane really, because- and his cheeks are flushed with what Alfred thinks are excitement. He looks like he’s planning somehting. Alfred doesn’t think he’ll like this.

He nods.

(Because he's _weak_.)

"Great!"

Yeah, _right_. Great.

They walk through the forest together. Alfred doesn’t really know where they’re heading to- not to the main palace though. He knows at least that much.

"You look like a dragon, you know?"

Alfred tries not to look surprised. His hands are clammy, but his smile feels almost natural against his lips. Arthur has an air of childlike wonderment, he thinks. Which is, frankly, weird. Alfred is a few years younger than he is, after all.

"How do dragons look like?"

"Like you!" Arthur explains. There’s a soft crinkling of bells. "Like they feel so much different emotions inside them at the same time. Like I think you do. For example," he pauses.

Alfred breaths again.

"I think you're feeling happy right now. And agitated. And confused. And scared, too. Which aren't emotions that usually go together. Unless you're nervous," Arthur grins. Alfred feels his heart stutter. "But you're not, not really."

alfred smiles back. Arthur beams at him.

"I like your smile, Alfred," Arthur says, and _whoa, is it hot in here or what?_ Alfred thinks the prince's hands are covered with something, but he still manages another smile.

And then all he sees is black.

\-----

He hears  more than he feels his pain. He hears his joints clamming up and thickening, hears his groans against the floors, but-

He's a dragon again.

He realises this, because:

  1. His joints are sore,
  2. He smells smoke,
  3. He hears things he does not usually hear, like the sounds of a fly's wings flapping and a flower dying at the other side of town,
  4. He feels awful, like there's lead in his mouth and tonnes of bricks behind his back. He feels like a professional wrestler who's not so professional anymore,
  5. He smells smoke,
  6. He smells smoke, and
  7. He smells smoke.



He blinks his eyes open, and feels a surge of protectiveness wash over him. He needs to protect his country. He needs to protect the kingdom, royalty. He needs to protect the prince, because his father isn’t here to do so.

He flaps his wings experimentally, and he only breaks a few vases and some pots, no big deal. There's still so many smoke around him, though, he should stop breathing out fire-

He’s not breathing out fire.

The smoke is from the kitchen.

And it is not from him.

\-----

Arthur is a _very_ bad cook. And a very prideful one at that.

Alfred thinks Arthur should be more surprised to see a dragon in his kitchen, (how are they in the second palace? The one used for summers? How does Alfred only realise this now?) but Arthur just looks desperate.

"They're good, Alfred, dragon!" Arthur offers. Alfred does not know what Arthur is offering. Alfred is scared. "Alfred, please! Try them! They're great!"

Arthur looks at him with his ordinary green eyes.

Alfred hates himself.

\-----

There's more fire in his eyes now than Alfred has noticed before. His eyes sparkled like wildfire, like he has an uncontrollable urge to burn, burn, _burn_ , willing things to die.

Alfred thinks he's probably not supposed to be afraid of fire (he’s a dragon, for goodness' sake!) but he _isn't_. He’s not scared of the fire, not really- he's scared of the implications, of what things are meant to be. He's never really known the crown prince. Who knows what he might be?

"People..," he hears. Just a small sound, a soft whimper. The wildfire in Arthur's eyes are gone. Now it's left only with a splash of fire, threatening to blow out at any moment. Alfred feels sorry.

But then the flames are at it again, getting bigger, bigger- until it stopped. And dimmed. _Again._

Arthur’s eyes are on him again. Alfred feels exposed, he feels flames around his being. "People want to kill you."

Alfred’s not surprised.

Arthur motions at him, like, _'yeah, I know, people think you're weird and they want to kill you, which is a normal day in the life of the knight dragon, of course.'_ And then he rolls his eyes.

Arthur looks at him, his mouth quirks downwards like he's trying to think. Then, he says, "I’m never going to die. I’m immortal. And I think water-fire dragons like you are too."

Alfred just stares at him, trying not to show his surprise. Which is kind of easy. Because. Dragon form.

Arthur stares back, and Alfred is yet again struck speechless at how beautiful this man is, which makes him feel like crying. Probably not a good idea. It'll bring flood. Literal flood.

He groans.

"Ah, yeah, " Arthur says, and Alfred can see the tinge of red-gold wings from behind his back- and then it’s gone. "Want more cookies? You seem to really like it!"

Alfred hates being an immortal dragon.

Arthur looks at him- ordinary green eyes and all- and he smiles, more with his eyes than his mouth. “They want to kill me to. I’m a first generation phoenix, you know.”

Alfred gives him a look that states how much he _does not know_.

Arthur blinks, he looks like he thought this was information everybody knew. “I’m a nature mage, too, so fairies? Flock to me? And I talk to them? They make tinkling sounds I can understand?”

Alfred looks at him confusedly.

The prince gives him a look that he translates as fond exasperation. “One of these days, immortal or not- dragon or not, phoenix or not- we’re both going down together, I swear.”

Arthur looks at him again, and Alfred’s heart sings-

_Still the most beautiful person on earth._

\-----

He’s a knight above all else. Above anything else that he is, with his scales and his wings and his whooshing tail, he’s a knight first. It’s his first priority, his utmost responsibility. And, as a knight, he can’t a let a member of royalty go out unarmed. He should protect them.

Even if it costs him his life.

**Author's Note:**

> So basically I'm very weak to lowkey!smitten!Alfred and I'm also very weak to Arthur with a childlike streak, so I hope you guys liked it too!!
> 
> This is written for nateyjones on tumblr for the usuksecretsantaexchange2016!! I hope everyone have enjoyed this, please do give kudos and comment if you have the time!
> 
> Thank you very much!!


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